Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Closing Camp "Gitmo" at the current time would be a major…

- - - - The Bush administration has never been able to actually prove that its use of torture was necessary however; nor has it been able to extricate itself from the moral dilemma it created by engaging in tactics that previously distinguished this country from its enemies.” (Buonomo).
    - - Experienced military interrogators are among the ﬁrst to say that torture is often counterproductive, unproductive in terms of reliable information, and unnecessary despite all the ticking time-bomb’ scenarios used in its justiﬁcation. Much of this is a matter of common sense. How many of us would confess to virtually anything if subjected to torture on a daily basis? Many of these detainees are not reticent to assume responsibility for their crimes, and, in their fanaticism, are proud to admit to them. (Malone)
  - - - . “The use of torture by our own government is a huge setback for human rights advocates for the rule of law around the world … Truth does not come from breaking people.” (Hentoff.)
      - There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world. Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law. (Berrigan)
- - - - For decades since the U.S. ratified the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the official policy of the U.S. government has been for its military to follow the minimum standards for treating all detainees as laid out in the Conventions. However, in 2002, President Bush suspended portions of the Geneva Conventions as applicable to captured al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. (Berrigan)
    - - In June 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prisoners held at Guantanamo were entitled to the minimal protections listed under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, basically calling for the humane treatment of detainees. Following this, on July 7, 2006, the Department of Defense issued an internal memo stating that prisoners would in the future be entitled to protection under Common Article 3. The detainees held as of June 2008 have been classified by the United States as "enemy combatants," essentially disqualifying them from prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions. (Domingo)
    - - Torture that has taken place at Guantanamo Bay includes jamming feeding tubes up the nostrils of hunger strikers twice daily and force-feeding them Ex-Lax so they lose control of their bowels.
      - One detainee, a Kuwaiti named Fawszi al-Odah, said he stopped his five-month hunger strike this month when he heard the screams of a fellow prisoner guards rammed a feeding tube up his nose. (Wheeler)
      - Al-Odah reported that in December guards started taking clothes, shoes and blankets away from 85 hunger strikers. He charged that guards mixed Ex-Lax with the liquid formula force-fed to 40 other strikers, causing them to defecate on themselves. (Wheeler)
      - The report buttresses recent charges by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Center for Constitutional Rights that torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading practices are being inflicted on the Guantanamo detainees in flagrant violation of U.S. and international law.
      - Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who gained notoriety at the time of the exposure of Iraq's Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse in spring of that year, said on June 15, 2004, that she had been instructed by her superiors that detainees "were to be treated like dogs, following the model in Camp Delta in Guantanamo
      - Karpinski was instructed to treat detainees like dogs by depriving detainees of sleep; leaving them in excessively cold, air-conditioned rooms; placing them in 'stress positions'; and forcing them to stand or crouch for long periods with their arms extended
    - - First, the U.S. believed that if challenged legally, they could (and did) argue that the sovereignty of Guantanamo ultimately resides with Cuba and that, therefore, the U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction to hear matters relating to prisoners held in Cuba. This argument met with disapproval by U.S. courts.
      - Second, the only judiciary available to the U.S. in Cuba are internal military tribunals, whose rules differ greatly from those of U.S. domestic courts.
- - - - As far back as 2005, U.S. military policy regarding allegations of torture by Iraqi security forces was to shift investigatory authority from frontline units to higher headquarters, effectively ensuring that Iraqi forces would be permitted to operate in flagrant violation of international law.
      - Underlining Pentagon disdain for the rule of law, The New York Times reported Feb. 13 that years after two Afghan detainees were murdered, prosecution of the killers has virtually collapsed. The two men were found dead within days of each other, hanging by their shackled wrists in isolation cells at the U.S. Bagram prison north of Kabul. They had been beaten to death. Of 27 soldiers and officers who faced criminal charges, only 15 have been prosecuted. Five pleaded guilty to assault charges and the stiffest penalty was five months in a military prison. Only one soldier has been convicted and he was not imprisoned at all.
  - - - Prior to the 2003 invasion, the American public was treated to a relentless propaganda bombardment focused on the evils of Saddam Hussein, including most notoriously his use of torture against his enemies. It was America's responsibility to stop this evil, so the narrative went, increasingly so after the intelligence community failed to find any trace of WMDs in post-invasion Iraq. (Buonomo)
      - The American public now knows that the Bush administration authorized the CIA to employ torture against suspected high level Al Qaeda operatives in the name of national security. The public was told that these techniques were necessary to protect American citizens and that they were carefully calibrated in order to minimize any harm beyond what was absolutely necessary to fulfill the government's mandate.
- - - - Works Cited
        Abai, Mulugeta., and Ezat Mossallanejad. “A Day for the Absolute Prohibition of Torture.”
        Human Rights Tribune. Vol. 9, Issue 1, 30 April 2015, p15. ProQuest, http://search.proquest.com/docview/225109940/abstract/1F8D552C2A0F4501PQ/3?accountid=14412
        
        Berrigan, Frida. “Trapped by Guantanamo.” Foreign Policy in Focus. 19 November 2010. ProQuest, http://search.proquest.com/docview/815197018/abstract/A61A90E3EA354C0FPQ/1?accountid=14412
        
        Buonomo, T.J. “Decisive Evidence of the Bush Administration’s Criminal Liability.”
        Foreign Policy in Focus. 27 October 2010. ProQuest, http://search.proquest.com/docview/791406867/abstract/8372FE3F6E0845D3PQ/1?accountid=14412
        Domingo, Cindy. “From Treaties to Torture.” Peace and Freedom. Vol. 70, Issue 2.
        Fall 2010. ProQuest, http://search.proquest.com/docview/816536767/abstract/31C5F5C2074C425CPQ/1?accountid=14412
        Hentoff, Nat. “Stain on the White House” The Village Voice. Vol. 50, Issue 9,
        9 August 2005, p22. ProQuest, http://search.proquest.com/docview/232251257/abstract/1F8D552C2A0F4501PQ/4?accountid=14412
        Lewis, Erik. “Closing America’s Torture Chambers.” In These Times. Vol. 33, Issue 3.
        March 2009: 7-16. ProQuest, http://search.proquest.com/docview/195860101/fulltext/EAC1454AF8F34058PQ/1?accountid=14412
        
        Malone, Linda. “The Legal Dilemma of Guantanamo Detainees from Bush to Obama.”
        Criminal Law Forum. Vol. 23, Issue 4. 2012. ProQuest, http://search.proquest.com/docview/1113744920/abstract/A78C2C76E1DF44D4PQ/1?accountid=14412
        
        Maran, Rita. “Detention and Torture in Guantanamo.” Social Justice.
        Vol. 33, Issue 4. 2006: 151-181. ProQuest, http://search.proquest.com/docview/231929510/abstract/6922D6DC55D14885PQ/1?accountid=14412
        
        Obama, Barack. “Let’s Close the Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay.”
        Vital Speeches of the Day. Vol. 82, Issue 4. April 2016: 107-109. EBSCOhost, http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/viewarticle/render?data=dGJyMPPp44rp2%2fdV0%2bnjisfk5Ie46a9It6exS7Ok63nn5Kx95uXxjL6nsEe0pbBIr6yeULinslKwqZ5Zy5zyit%2fk8Xnh6ueH7N%2fiVaunsEmvr69Ms6i3PurX7H%2b72%2bw%2b4ti7ebfepIzf3btZzJzfhrunr0yvprVPtK%2bkfu3o63nys%2bSN6uLyffbq&vid=2&sid=9ae9000e-ba24-4fa3-b3ea-76064b26dc97@sessionmgr4009&hid=4206
        
        Wheeler, Tim. “Hunger strikers tortured at Guantanamo; UN report calls for closing
        U.S. prison.” People's Weekly World. Vol. 20, Issue 34. February 2006. ProQuest, http://search.proquest.com.proxy.kyvl.org/docview/200586774/abstract/B9E71D32A5C44247PQ/1?accountid=11936